Tuesday, June 15, 2010

Picking a team

At this time every 4 years I like to hunker down and gorge myself on as much football as possible. I've never exactly been a fan of England despite that being my country of origin, but then I've never been much of a one for any sort of national identity anyway. The fact that many of the England team are quite obviously utter wankers is not terribly helpful in convincing me otherwise.

Also, Romania, my chosen home are not there because they are utterly rubbish at the moment, and neither are Hungary, who at least would garner local interest were they there, but they've been shit ever since the 50s.

So, who should I support? Here is a site which has some complex formula to tell you which country ought to get your support (Ghana, apparently). I would be very happy were an African team to win, and Ghana are the most likely to do OK, it would seem.

But I have to have arbitrary criteria. Algeria have one good thing going for them - the presence in their squad of ex-Sheffield Wednesday defender Madjid Bougherra. But the best option is Honduras. Yes, they did have a very dodgy coup last year, which is not exactly what one looks for in a nation (I'm not sure how they come 3rd in that site above given that to be honest), but there are some reasons to support them (these may not convince you but bear with me)
  1. I have seen them play. I have only seen 3 international matches in my life, so this is something that sets them apart - two when I was working as a steward at Wembley and saw England play Scotland and then Columbia three days later in something called the Rous Cup, and the other as a paying customer in Washington DC in a World Cup qualifier a good few years ago - The USA vs Honduras. It was a great day out and Honduras surprisingly won 3-2 with a great performance. I distinguished myself by chanting "You're not singing any more" in the face of a baffled and rather initimidated teenage girl, which is not exactly my finest moment.
  2. Their captain is called "Guevara". Need I say more?
  3. They wear blue and white stripes. There is no better footballing strip than the classic blue and white stripe. And this is objectively and unargaubly true. But Argentina's light blue and white doesn't cut it. You need royal blue.
So support Honduras. They won't win, but they will deserve to.

Once they get knocked out though, I'm going for Spain. Don't think they'll win either, but I'd like them too.